RADIO HEIST

February 11th, 2013

“Breakfast At Sylvia’s” is the infectious new single by Wakefield’s Skint & Demoralised. The song is released (alongside b-side “The Queen Of Chelsea”) on Monday 25th March. But fear not, you can stream the single online from today!

It was late 2006 at an underground secret gig in Sheffield when a young 17-year-old Matt Abbott gave his first burst of
spoken word punk poetry under the stage name of Skint & Demoralised. And as the resulting musical act releases its
third album in spring 2013, we get a dose of that very same sharp-tongued Yorkshire spoken word delivery that earned
Abbott his reputation in the first place.

Even as a beginner in his late teens, the Wakefield-born poet had an uncanny skill for grabbing his listeners by the
scruff of the neck and planting them into this world of Northern realism and tongue-in-cheek humour. His work is based
on painting vivid and often bleak pictures that somehow manage to salvage some romance along the way and almost
leave us yearning to be a part of his surroundings in a “twenty-first century tumbleweed town”; a notion that is
demonstrated perfectly in the opening release from this highly anticipated new album.

Set in the archetypal “greasy spoon” café where Abbott used to treat himself to a fry up and a mug of tea after his
Saturday morning paper round, the backdrop is as British as they come, and as he moves effortlessly from line to line
and instantly creates this world around us, you can almost smell the bacon as it spits seductively in the pan.

But itʼs before his wry and conversational delivery has even started that youʼre already hooked on this song; MiNI
dOGʼs bass-line is instantly addictive and sounds like something that Peter Hook might have fumbled upon during the
transition between Joy Division and New Order. The whole backing track is outrageously simple, to the point where
Abbott rejected a second “polished” mix upon hearing it and insisted that they revert to the original rough demo in
order to keep in spirit with the tone of the song. This unashamedly defiant and “take us or leave it” attitude is what
makes ʻThe Bit Between The Teethʼ such a brilliant record, and clocking in at less than three minutes, this is the
perfect taster for what could easily become the stand-out indie record of the year.

Throughout the rest of the record, Abbottʼs sharp and at times brutally honest offerings take us through a variety of
stories and scenarios – mainly set where they were written on the Northumbrian coast – and in a continuation from
second album ʻThis Sporting Lifeʼ, the 24-year-old frontman uses his Shane MacGowan-esque vocals to sing through
the majority of the tracks.

It is with a wealth of experience and a rocky road in the music industry that Matt Abbott and MiNI dOGʼs relationship
has matured and developed so finely, and this third release through Heist Or Hit Records finally sounds like the step
that could propel them into the public eye.

“Breakfast At Sylvia’s” is the first single to be taken from Skint & Demoralised’s third studio album, “The Bit Between The Teeth” (album released via Heist Or Hit Records on Monday 8th April).